A UN plan for Kosovo will remove the majority Albanian province from Serbian sovereignty and set it on the road to independence, but provide Serbs living there with significant autonomy, diplomatic and UN sources say.

UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari will discuss the package today in Vienna with the six-power Contact Group setting policy on Kosovo since NATO wrested control of the province in 1999.

The diplomatic and UN sources have said the blueprint gives Kosovo the right to enter into international agreements and apply for membership of international organizations and institutions, potentially including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

It talks of the right to "dual-citizenship" and urges Pristina to establish good relations with Serbia and other neighboring states. Unlike UN resolution 1244 governing Kosovo since the pullout of Serb forces, it contains no reference to Serbian sovereignty.

Kosovo will take on its share of economic assets, and debts,  that once belonged to the former Yugoslavia and Serbia.

Germany described the eventual outcome as "independence with limits on its sovereignty". The limitations will be guided by the European Union and an overseer will be appointed.

The plan, fruit of more than a year of shuttle diplomacy and direct Serb-Albanian talks, needs a new UN resolution to take effect. It will remain under wraps until Ahtisaari hands it over in Belgrade and Pristina on February 2.

Serbia will almost certainly dismiss it outright.

In a counter-insurgency war in 1998-99, some 10,000 Albanians were allegedly killed and 800,000 driven into camps in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro.

NATO bombs drove out Serb forces and the UN took control.

'The key is in Moscow'

Russia, however, has threatened to use its veto at the UN Security Council if the solution goes against the wishes of its sometime Orthodox ally Serbia. Belgrade has offered autonomy for the land, steeped in history and myth for Serbs.

"We're on a collision course between the principles of a people's right to self-determination and a country's right to defend itself," said a senior diplomat. "The key is in Moscow."

To sweeten the pill, Ahtisaari plans to give Kosovo's 100,000 remaining Serbs broad self-government, considerable control over the running of local police, and the right to certain direct links with Belgrade. Serbia will be able to finance Serb areas, provided the money goes through Pristina.

Protection zones will be thrown around the most valuable of scores of centuries-old Serb Orthodox religious sites.

"Pristina will understand that in fact it comes down to a Serb entity under Belgrade rule," said the diplomat.

The Albanians will also have to stomach years of further supervision under an EU police mission and Bosnia-style foreign envoy with powers to scrap laws and dismiss local officials.

NATO will keep troop levels unchanged at 16,500 into 2008.

Serbs and Albanians will bargain over the fine print in February, but may only prove the futility of further talks.

If Russia does not veto, a UN resolution could come by mid-2007, freeing individual states to recognize Europe's newest country and the last to be carved from the former Yugoslavia.

(China Daily via agencies January 26, 2007)